


The Other Side of the Cell

by Aedriane



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Inprisonment, One Shot, child!Turlough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aedriane/pseuds/Aedriane
Summary: Imprisoned (yet again), the Doctor finds himself face to face with a rather quiet child.(Written in 2015)





	The Other Side of the Cell

_Locked in a cell by the locals. I don’t even know what planet this is. All I know is that I seem to have landed in the middle of a civil war._

He then heard a noise. The door leading in from the rest of the complex shuttered open, and he heard footsteps. Not like the heavy, uniform steps of a guard or military official, though. They were quiet and slow, as if someone – someone small – had wandered their way in. The Doctor tried his best to look up the hallway as he heard the noisy door close. He didn’t have much luck, but he did notice his would-be visitor was very short. A child, perhaps.

As the steps grew closer, the Doctor found his suspicions confirmed. It was a boy. Not really a young boy, but not quite a young man. He appeared to be a native of the planet. Ginger hair to his shoulders, large, pale blue eyes, rather thin. He seemed to carry himself with maturity beyond his years. There was also something very familiar about him.

He watched the boy, but the boy also seemed to be watching him. Looking him over, as if trying to figure him out. Of course, who wouldn’t? Strange man appears, looks enough like a native. Strange clothes, strange possessions, strange way of talking. Doesn’t know a lick of what’s going on on this planet, but has no real way of explaining how he got there. Locked up as a potential threat, but is simply misinformed? No, the boy couldn’t have known all of that. But he was wondering, the Time Lord could tell that much.

There was a long silence as the two simply watched each other. The Doctor pondering this curious familiarity surrounding the boy, and – he assumed, at least – the boy trying to figure this prisoner out. The whole time, he noticed, he had not seen the boy’s blue eyes blink once. Unblinking. Analyzing. Now, instead of wondering, the boy’s mind was calculating. He was using logic to try and figure out this gangly prisoner. It was difficult enough for the Doctor to apply logic to himself, and he figured that this little ginger would have just as much, if not more of a challenge doing so.

“You’re not from here.” The boy finally spoke, sounding very quiet, almost meek compared to his facial expression and posture.

“No.” The Doctor began hoarsely before clearing his throat, “No, I’m not.” He smiled just a little bit. He was used to being locked up and having people assume that he was their enemy. However, when it came to pass that someone believed him, or somehow knew otherwise, he just had to feel glad for it.

“Your eyes. They’ve seen war...” The boy spoke up again, and his words caught the Time Lord’s attention. Noticing this, the boy continued. “Not this war, though.” His eyes then dropped, breaking contact with the Doctor’s for the first time since he had approached the cell. “You’ve seen the end of war.” He finished, his tone not changing, though sounding indefinitely sadder with his current expression.

The Doctor blinked at this, his own expression darkening, though he still didn’t say a word. A child that knew a war’s end would never be peaceful. He looked to the boy again, whose gaze was still locked to the ground. After a few moments, the boy glanced to the Doctor, but then immediately looked away, at the wall nearby. He wanted to laugh, just a little, but he didn’t feel he could. He just looked away, feeling the child wouldn’t look back if he kept staring. Something he didn’t expect, though, was the sound of a quiet footstep just outside the cell. He looked up as the boy was curling his fingers around two of the bars. He looked a bit scared, as if approaching a wildcat’s cage. He wanted to see this prisoner a little better, or so the Doctor thought, though he wasn’t sure if he should. The Doctor didn’t move at all. He just smiled that warm, goofy grin of his and watched the ginger adjust his grip on the iron that separated them.

“Who are you?” The boy asked, a strange expression crossing his face at the smile. The Doctor though for a moment, his smile fading, a little. He had introduced himself to the guards as ‘The Doctor’, but that would be seen as the name of a prisoner. A name looked down upon by the boy’s elders.

“I’m...just a traveler.” He said quietly, though with enough confidence to dissipate any assumptions he may be lying. The boy seemed very keen to that sort of thing. He nodded very slowly in response before taking his hands off of the bars and quietly stepping back. He then, to the Doctor’s surprise, smiled. Not a huge grin, but a very small, not even full smile. The Time Lord’s own smile came back, but only for a moment, as he heard the familiar sound of the only door in and out of here.

“There you are.” A deep, adult-sounding voice said with a relieved sigh as the door squeaked closed. The sound of heavy bootfalls brought a very tall man into the Doctor’s line of view. Looking up at the man, the Doctor saw that the man could have easily been the boy’s father. Blond with a similar face, though his eyes were brown. “I thought I told you not to come back here. You’re not allowed.” He told the boy with a stern tone, though with a softness that affirmed the Doctor’s guess.

“I know...” The boy trailed off, looking down a bit. He then quickly looked back up. “He wasn’t going to hurt me.” The man looked to the prisoner for a few moments, then back to the boy, looking a bit troubled.

“Still, you mustn’t come back here. Come along, it’s time to leave.” He told his son, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I told your mother we would be home ten minutes ago.” The boy nodded at this, looking sullen, before looking back to the Doctor, who simply returned the look in silence. After a few moments, the boy looked away and started for the exit with his father.

This left the Doctor alone with his thoughts.


End file.
